Affiliate Marketers, Get to Know Misspellings (again)

August 23, 2012

Affiliate Marketers constitute an industry that, according to Search Marketing Standard “is predicted to reach $4 billion by 2014, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 16% from 2009 through 2014” in the United States alone. With so much money changing hands, a new program seemingly launches every week. Competition is fierce.

While programs offer varying payouts, the key to success is to generate as many leads for as little out of pocket as possible. How can Affiliate Marketers succeed in such a hectic industry?

I suppose the real question is not “how” but “where”. Everyone’s favorite answer machine, Google, is famously unfriendly to Affiliate Marketers. While their perspective is (understandably) on the quality of the surfer experience, Google is notorious for removing Affiliate Marketers from Adwords for the even the most minor of infractions. Affiliate friendly, Google is not.

After removing Google from the equation, marketers cycle through the usual suspects: Bing (low traffic volume; similar position on Affiliate Marketers as Google), Facebook (clicks = yes, purchases = debatable), Twitter ( to drop links), or article writing. Once these avenues have been exhausted, affiliate marketers inevitably turn to the second tier engines (notably 7Search, Clicksor, Advertising.com) in the quest for riches. These platforms are much more Affiliate friendly, in many cases allowing direct linking of offers, generous keyword limits, and incredible keyword values. They are also, as you likely suspect, incredibly saturated. How can a marketer get ahead?

As it turns, by looking to an oldie but a goodie; keyword misspellings.

The use of misspelled keywords has fallen out of vogue in recent years due to improved keyword mapping by search engines.

We recommend a great free tool provided by SEOBook.com, the Keyword Typo Generator. Use this tool to quickly create relevant lists of misspelled terms which can be an excellent source of low cost traffic. True, most paid search platforms map many common misspellings, but there are still countless variations that are not mapped and could provide another avenue of low cost conversion for your offers. In affiliate marketing, low cost leads are, after all, the name of the game.